20pluscommunitydigestion
There is a great difference in excellency, usefulness, and comfort between people of clear, digested knowledge, and confused, undigested apprehensions. -Richard BaxterArchive for November, 2006
what to ask God for Christmas this year
We enter into the season of Advent this Sunday, a period during which we rehearse that “looking forward” to Christmas,
that anticipation of the celebration of the Incarnation of God in the form of a fragile, vulnerable child. Though looking forward is really looking back to a pivotal moment in God’s history, it may in some sense be another exercise in turning our attention–in looking forward–to the day when He will return. As those in the decades prior to the incarnation looked ahead to that undisclosed day when the Lord would come with power, are we no less implored to wait with expectation–that is with hope and obedience even in days of struggle and tedium–for the coming again of the Savior? Expectation is one emotion worthy of cultivating. Keep that in mind for a moment. There’s another emotion I’d like you to consider alongside that of expectation–this one derived from your childhood:
a few good helpers….
We’re looking to help out with Union Gospel Mission on Thanksgiving Morning. They need about 10 people on the 23rd to pack and deliver prepared meals to 2 nursing homes and couple of regular houses – we would need to get there around 8 am, pack up the meals, and take them to homes around 10 am. If you’d be willing and able, would you contact Erika McIntyre IMMEDIATELY so she can give UGM a head count for how many they can expect from us.
This may not be your traditional way of spending Thanksgiving morning, but here’s to breaking tradition.
sin on a theme
Spalding suggested we might discuss some of the “thematic sins” in our lives through the lens (sorry for the mixed metaphor) of spiritual warfare we’ve considered the last couple weeks–thematic, as in regularly-occurring. . .what Hebrews 12:1 might call “besetting sins that so easily entangle.”
So what might be some of those sins that tend to afflict young adults? Throw me a bone…
these are times that try…
Dustin Salter is the Reformed University Fellowship (RUF) campus minister at Furman in
Greenville, SC. He only recently left the same position at TCU. A few days ago, he suffered a head injury bicycling with his kids that has turned out to be far more serious than a “bicycling injury” might suggest. He is no longer on a ventilator, but unless the Lord intervenes significantly, Dustin, according to his doctors, will need long-term care. It sounds extremely devastating for him, his wife, Leigh Anne, and their three children.
They would, of course, welcome your prayers.
It is times like this that much in us is tried–confronted, tested, stretched. Whether you’re close or at a distance from the events you can’t help but re-evaluate your assumptions, however well-reasoned they may be.
So, though it may not be time to quote well-meaning, but ill-timed verses like Romans 8:28, it is time to hear again some very humble, but unflinching comments on suffering from a Christ-centered perspective. Here’s an interview with a pastor quoted before on these pages with an NPR correspondent. You need to set aside a lunch-time for this. Not just to listen, but to think over afterwards.
your “i do” better be surrounded by a “we will too”
The CNN article linked from a previous post has gone AWOL. But the topic endures, this time with specific reference to the need for a whole network of close relationships if you ever plan to be married. Culture has laid upon marriage responsibilities no two people were ever meant to bear. Here’s more language in that direction.
And you thought you were having a bad day…
Check out this article from the Bronsons in Thailand…
succinctness is the soul of wisdom
this from C.S. Lewis’ The Great Divorce:
earth, if chosen instead of heaven, will turn out to have been only a region in hell; and earth, if put second to heaven, to have been from the beginning a part of heaven itself.
20pluscommunitydigestion 